Surfrider Foundation Press Release On Poseidon Lawsuit Appeal

San Diego, CA (August 18, 2011) - The Surfrider Foundation filed
appeal today of Superior Court Judge Judith F. Hayes' ruling siding
with the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board's
determination to allow "open ocean" intake to withdraw seawater for
an ocean desalination facility on the Carlsbad coast, the largest
ever planned in the United States, and the first to be scrutinized
by the California courts. The issue will now go to the Court of
Appeal in the 4th Appellate District, which covers San Diego.

The question before the Superior Court of San Diego was whether the
site, design, technology and mitigation measures chosen by Poseidon
Resources will successfully minimize the marine life killed in the
seawater intake process. While the lower court answered the
question in the affirmative, Surfrider thinks the Appellate Court
will disagree.

This project plans to use the discharge from coastal power plants
that withdraw seawater to cool the steam generators as source water
for the desalination process. Surfrider Foundation and other
environmental organizations argue that these "cooling water
intakes" are being phased out by regulatory agencies to eliminate
the associated marine life mortality. Larger fish are trapped on
the "trash screens" and smaller animals that get through are killed
in the cooling process. Allowing other industrial facilities such
as desalination plants to continue to use this outdated technology
does not comport with California's law.

"California coastal protection policies are clear that desalination
project proponents must protect our marine life, and it is clear
that this project fails to do that," says Joe Geever, Surfrider
Foundation's California Policy Coordinator. "We turn to the courts
as a last resort, because while the State Water Resource Control
Board and the Ocean Protection Council are developing policy on
protecting marine life from ocean desalination intakes, it is too
late to affect this particular project."

"If California is moving away from open-ocean intakes for power
plants, then they should not allow desalination plants to use
them," says Julia Chunn-Heer, Surfrider Foundation's San Diego
Campaign Coordinator. "The plant in Carlsbad is the first of
twenty proposed for California's coastline, so Surfrider is
emphatically vested in ensuring policies are interpreted correctly
to protect our threatened ocean ecosystems."

Surfrider Foundation believes that ocean desalination is harmful to
the marine environment. The costs associated with desalination
undermine efforts to develop alternatives that would provide
reliable water sources that simultaneously resolve problems of
ocean pollution, habitat degradation and the growing energy demand
while saving money for regional ratepayers.